Eight More Recordings From 9/11 Found

Published: April 6, 2006

The city yesterday discovered eight more recordings of 911 calls and emergency dispatches made during the 2001 attack on the World Trade Center on two tapes that were previously overlooked, the Fire Department announced.

These eight recordings are in addition to the 130 recordings that were made public last week in response to a Freedom of Information request made by The New York Times in January 2002.

The additional Sept. 11 recordings will be released after they are processed by the city's Law Department, the Fire Department said.

The city will first notify relatives of callers who can be identified in the recordings. Family members can receive a full copy of the tapes and can choose to make them public. Otherwise, as with the previous recordings, the city will release only the operator's or dispatcher's side of the call. Calls made by city employees involved in their duties, however, will be released in full.

The recordings were found when city investigators searched for the remainder of a 911 call made by Battalion Chief Dennis Devlin, who was transferred from one dispatcher to another. Chief Devlin died in the attack. His wife, Kathleen, criticized the city last week for failing to redact his name on the recording and failing to notify her of the recording's existence.

In the initial call, Chief Devlin asked for a rundown of companies in the South Tower, where he was situated. He was transferred to a second dispatcher to receive the rundown, and that is where the initial transcript ended. In hunting for the remainder of his call, investigators found the remaining recordings.